I poked my camera over the fence at the back of the school and snapped the following, people it has changed a lot, where there was a tennis court, (where we used to play red rover!), is now grassed over......
..and the undercover parking on the west side of the school... without the gemsbok....
I remember the tennis court well. Had a high fence around it. The ölsaubschers, Mark Swanepoel ect were the soccer stars in the big break.
The "new" tennis court used to be the place girls would play netball. In breaks some of us would sometimes spin our tops there.
That tennis court had a wire mesh fence around it and a wooden fence along the base, I think there were two gates and a cement wall (still in photo) on the one side.... we used to play stingers and red rover in there.... the marbles were played down by the art room side.....
allgood
I remember the marble playing to. Guys like Steven Brownless would put up about 20 or 30 at a time, so you'd have to take 20 or 30 steps away. All kids would go bezerk through their marbles. At a hit everbody would scrum for the marbles.
hahaha
Chinese Checker
Goonie
Tigers Eye
......
anymore names?
Chinese checkers were worth 2 or 3 marbles, depending on what they looked like.
... almost forgot... twiceys...... and remember those guys with the gates, with the different numbers ontop, you got the arlie through, you got that number of marbles back.....
I think i may have posted this before but anyway. John Macabe "Spiderman" used to spend breaks climbing all around those nets, sometimes old Margie would give chase while we all stood around cheering them on.
Yes spiderman .. not a well child was he .. and he and Margie did not get on .. sworn enemies always looking for a way to get at each other .. ...
I can tell this story now as Mom and dad are not around ... . he one day scratched around in our house and found my Moms .22 revolver ... it was me and Richard Wrethman who tried to get it off him as he was walking around brandishing it like it was a toy gun ... the story ended up in a shootout .. him hiding in the alley and taking pots at us .. other kids of the area not taking much notice thinking it was a rather cool and very noisy cap gun he must have had .. the reality for us was a few shots narrowly missing us .. he relinquished the gun when he ran out of bullets ... as spiderman was persona non grata in our home and we had let him in it would have meant trouble for me so we just kept dead quiet hoping the story of the rather cool cap gun did not get around ....
"Roll up, roll up, 2 man shy, nix anything"...........when i think marble season at OPS, that echoes in my head. Remember when someone would scramble their arlies - a few jokers thought it a good time to do that when we were all lined up in the quad at the end of break knowing that there were some that wouldn't be able to resist breaking rank for marbles - they would do it just before the teachers arrived just to check the chaos erupt..........
....and how many a poor sod would forfeit all his marbles to a teacher, when during class, his marbles would somehow escape from his pocket and with a clattering scatter themselves about the classroom floor.....
:36_2_24:
not surprised with that 'cos i remember a lot of ultra bulging pockets full of arlies. didn't happen in any of our classes that i can remember but had a good giggle at the thought of it. don't know about OPS now days, but that doesn't seem to be a big thing now days at schools here in cape town, well not at my daughter's school anyway. in fact i don't hear of any seasons going on here like back in our day ie. top season, yo-yo season, marble season.........maybe it was just us inventive oranjemund kids that kept it going all those years in our isolation from the "real world".......
:sorriso2:
I still have a small bag with 5 marbles and 1 ghoen in from then. Promised my brood something like a train crash will happen to them should they dare to take those allas - proof of my winnings! yesno
I remember a game (don't know if I remember the name correctly) skalulu - we used to play it between the classrooms - some kid start up in the middle, the others would line up on two sides. The one in the middle would then roll a tennisball to one of the line-ups, who had to kick it to m*&%#r and then everyone had to run from both sides. The one in the middle had to pick up the ball, hit someone with it in the chaos and the one that was hit had to join him/her in the middle....
We also used to do rope jumping and another game with "broekrek" elastic. Think I might loose my teeth all over again if I should try it now....
"broekrek" elastic game.. I used to love that. It was called french skipping.
yougogirl
Should have asked long ago about this - could never remember what we called it! giverose
Skalulu, I remember that, We ll I did'nt until Delene mentioned it, memory found, was one of my favourite games....
I also remember, the guys making pipes outta those "acorns" that fell of the trees at school, by sticking a stick in the side of the akker.....
iknow
Quote from: Michael Alexander on December 13, 2007, 12:17:55 PM
... almost forgot... twiceys...... and remember those guys with the gates, with the different numbers ontop, you got the arlie through, you got that number of marbles back.....
Yeah! We made them in wood-wor5k.
Or do you remember eye-drop?
Way... 2 go georg, eye drop, where you stood above the marble and tried to drop it on the marble below to win it?
idontknow
Yip! quickdop
Is it only me but I remember my marbles being of equal value to the money in my pocket those days. Arlies were CURRENCY!...now my marbles are non-existent or useless, so my wife says all too often. Here in Holland they're called 'knikkers' My kids laughed at me when I called them arlies....
How many of you went home to your dad's garage and took the spraypaint can apart, just to get the cHinese checker out?
:ciupa1:
Tigers eyes.....in that chemical dispenser in your toilet cistern!
If you went down to the Rubbish area of the Carpenter shop, there were tons of old spray cans there, kinda like a treasure chest for Arlie enthusiasts!
happybirthday
That was a great place to pick up junk, modify it and you've got yourself a cool toy. Amazing what they threw away.....I sniffed my first GLUE there!.....aaaaah what a fond memory!
The bigger marbles were to be found Town Garage in the dumps..... Big Shiney Goonies ( er! Ballbearings,) , But whenever you put one down, the marbles would fly, You could be as rich as Bill Gates in marbleland by the end of the day!
:auguri1:
One of the best dumps....not well known though.....was behind the hospital (on the way to the carpenters' dump after school)...there they used to dispose of used needles, syringes, tubing (for kattys)...glass syringes! (priceless!) and unused ampules of god-knows-what. I used to play 'junkie' there. Once I accumulated a concoction of fluids in a moerse syringe and injected anything which resembled a fruit on the way home......needless to say a couple of days later the fruit was rather brown and dead. Jabbed myself by mistake too!!!!
.... and now you live in Holland! mmmh! Is there perhaps a link here? idontknow
:emot19:
Yep....here the state supplies CLEAN needles!!! free! quickdop
I was just a wondering what the hospital does with all their waste now that the incinerator burned down?
There are strong rumours doing the rounds again, about the hospital being outsourced next year!
idontknow
The main car dump, behind 1st avenue bushes....now that was a cool place. I once had the pleasure of sliding down a slope of boulders in a beetle bonnet!....once we hit the bottom we all got ejected at considerable speed from our 'chariot' and I still bear a scar to prove it!!!
Those dumps were our No. 1 numberone place to play, even more fascinating was playing on top of the sand walls by the Gun Club next to the dumps........
:buffo9: quickdop
@ Stephen, could that little jab and the scar you refer to, be the reason for your kid's amusement when you utter the word allies?
idontknow